Yesterday, model and content creator Nara Smith realised she was out of sunscreen . But instead of heading to the local Dallas drugstore or Sephora to pick up a new tube, as any other mother of three young children would do, Smith asked her husband—fellow model Lucky Blue Smith—to step into the kitchen and make the family some. Of course, she shared it all on TikTok.
“We burn pretty easily, so we went with something that has a little more SPF,” she narrates over the video where her husband (who she also describes as “a baker”) mixes together coconut oil, beeswax, shea butter, cocoa butter, and jojoba oil and places it on a double boiler. Next up, Lucky adds in zinc-oxide powder. (Zinc oxide is one of two ingredients generally recognized as safe and effective for use in physical or mineral sunscreen by the FDA in the United States.
) After the ingredients were whisked together, the white cream was then poured into a small mason jar and popped into the fridge to thicken. At the end of the video, the duo went outside to show the application, with Nara adding, “It went on so smooth and didn’t leave a white cast.” Nara has gained fame for her ability to whip up almost anything in the kitchen; homemade bubble gum and cookie-crisp cereal are just some of the videos with millions of views.
But did yesterday’s recipe for DIY sunscreen take it too far? “DIY sunscreen isn’t something any board-certified dermatologist would endorse,” says Mona A. Gohara , MD, .
